


The impending bankruptcy of a middle-sized manufacturer for low-demand products

by Lokuro



Series: Curse of Strahd Verse [7]
Category: Curse of Strahd - Fandom, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Blinsky is the saddest boi in this campaign, Gen, appreciate him <3, but tragic, he is not even sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29843802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokuro/pseuds/Lokuro
Summary: A short series of drabbles for our most amazing DM <3 covering some creepy, hilarious and frankly terrifying aspects of Barovian life~On some aspects of Barovian economy: Case 1 "The impending bankruptcy of a middle-sized manufacturer for low-demand products."
Series: Curse of Strahd Verse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802551
Kudos: 6





	The impending bankruptcy of a middle-sized manufacturer for low-demand products

The town of Vallaki was a sad place to be. The streets were muddy, and the faces were muddier still. Closed up and shut down, the grey visages of the citizens were dutifully composed to display boundless joy.

The town of Vallaki was a sad place to be for any living soul, but for the inherently joyful toymaker, it was the worst possible place. Each morning he woke up — always alone — ate his stale breakfast and opened his shop. During the opening hours, from the early watery grey to the late nightfall gloom, there was plenty of time to pursue his craft. His fat fingers were surprisingly nimble when it came to tying little knots, cutting tiny wooden fangs, or painting miniature faces. He poured all of his happiness into the small figurines, all of his soul and dreams. Maybe that's why all of his creations grew so twisted.

He still remembered the first time he held out a tiny skeleton to a small girl, the cheerful little skull grinning at the kid. The girl's face, mere minutes ago alight at the mention of dolls, crumpled in disgust, and she sought solace in her thin mother's arms, turning away from the friendly skeleton and its grubby little hands, already caught in her flaxen hair in an attempt to make friends. Blinsky was devastated. He never understood why the girl was fleeing from his creation instead of finding its empty eyes sockets and the gleefully toothy mouth hilarious.

But maybe the kids weren't sophisticated enough to appreciate his artwork. It was not for nothing that his most faithful customer was the head of the City Guard. A big, scary fellow; a customer of few words and very special tastes. Blinsky would have appreciated the chance to sell something besides the red-haired dolls (that and the monthly festival decorations being his only stable income, if both harshly censored in their creative output), but at least they made the man happy. And such was Blinsky's dream — to bring happiness and joy to his customers. So what if a rare fulfillment came as a demon-possessed murder and torturer who obsessively bought the red-haired dolls — who was Blinsky to question the Fates?

One afternoon, Izek Strazni came drunk into his shop. Or maybe it was not the only time, it was hard to tell with this helmet covering most of his face and the man barely speaking a word to him. When he did, his speech never sounded slurry, just oddly passionate and slightly more incoherent. It was only after the City Guard banged on the counter with his demonic hand that Blinsky realized something was amiss. The wish to study the hand — it would suit that cute little impish creature he had in mind quite splendid! — and the more practical sense of self-preservation battled for a few seconds before Izek smashed into the tiny army of models standing on display and sent them flying in the air. Puny hooves and pointed horns, wind-up springs and tiny gears, all enjoyed their moment of glory before they crumbled to the floor.

"Where is she? Are you hiding her here?" A web of burning lines coiled through the blacked arm and culminated in hot sparkles on top of sharp fingernails. At this point, Blinsky stopped his observations, ducked beneath the counter and did not see how the sparkles grew into angry tongues, all dark smoke and greedy flames. "Find her! She is... she is..." He did not see the desperate face, nor the obsession and anger and something even more frantic burning through the heart and the face of this man destroying his shop. The words trapped inside the iron helmet were hollow as ever, bouncing from the insides like a mad animal trapped in a deathly snare. A whispered "Have to find..." creeped through the slits of the helmet, almost detached from the City Guard raging on and the flames that ate through all the elaborate wooden figurines around him, setting a battalion of red-haired girls on fire.

The next day, the City Guard came back. The shop still stank of ash and burned up paint, and the blackened shelves were empty and desolate. Without a word, the Guard dropped a small purse on the counter and turned away. Blinsky sighed, adjusted the washed-out jester's jacket over his amiable stomach — the fit was getting a bit snug lately — and took the money without a word of complaint. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the Guard's human hand hovering over a not yet cleaned out shelf and gently plucking a blackened corpse of a doll from the pile of cold ash and spare metal parts. Its hair was burned away; its face dissolved into a tangled, blind mask with a single bright eye hanging onto the deformed head by a twisted wire. Against his chatterbox-nature, Blinsky did not say anything when the burned-up doll disappeared under the Guard's cloak, but in his heart he was proud of the tough little one, surviving a demon fire that destroyed bigger men without leaving so much a single bright eye.


End file.
